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M RY
S SSOR
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MARY SLESSOR
BY
CUTHBERT
McEVOY M.A.
Auth r
oj
The
reat
Embaaay,'' c., c.
For the
materials used
in
this
brief
sketch of a
great
life
the
Author is indebted
to Mr,W.
P. Livingstone's
Biography-MARY SLESSOR, OP CALABAR.
His
thanks are
due
to Mr. Livingstone, to bis publishers
(Messrs.
Hodder and
Stoughton), and to
tbe
owners
in the copyright o
that
book,
the Women s
Foreign Mission Committee of the United Pree
Church of
Scotland.
SIXTH
E ITION
Makin11 28,000),
LONDON:
THE CAREY PRESS
19 Furnival Street E.C.
4
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An
end
Comes to
us
all through blindness
age or
death.
I f
mine must
come in
exile shall find me
Bearing the torch as
far
as I can bear it
Until
f ll at the feet of the young runner
Who takes it from me and carries it out of sight
Into
the great new realms I must not tread.
Come then swift-footed let me
see
you stand
Waiting before
m11
crowned with youth and
joy
At
the
n11xt
turning. Take
it
from
my
hand
For I am almost
r11ady
now
to fall.
THE TORCHBEARERS
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CONTENTS.
OHil ' .
. -EARLY LIFE
ND
TRIALS.
II.- SEND ME.
I I I . -ON
THE FIELD.
IV.-MA.RY
SLESSOR T WORK.
V . - A MYSTERIOUS
CHECK
ND
PERILOUS ENTERPRISE.
VI . -THE GREAT
ACHIEVEMENT.
• VII.-S:PADE-WORK ND HONOUR.
VIII . -PEBSONAL
CH R CTERISTICS ND
CLOSING
SCENES.
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CHAPTER
I
EARLY
LIFE AND TRIALS.
M
ARY MITCHELL SLESSOR, the factory
girl who became the most remarkable
woman missionary of her age, was born on
December 2nd, 1848, in Aberdeen. Amid
the
shadows of a home darkened
by
intemperance
and poverty, Mary, the second of seven children,
found guidance in
the
example of a saintly
mother, who, with rare courage
and
patience,
kept the light of faith shining above the dreary
sorrow of her lot.
In
these facts may be found a clue
to the
secret of Mary Slessor s extraordinary career.
The land of her birth was the native land of
great missionary leaders such as Duff, Moffat,
Mackay
and
Livingstone. The example of in-
temperance that darkened the days of her child-
hood explains why
it
was
that
her gentle nature
flamed into a stem
indignation that more
than
once cowed
the
drunken loafers of Okoyong.
Her
noble mother set the compass of her daughter s
devoted life. Her duties
as
elder sister trained
her to
be
the
mother of her people ;
and the
i
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6
ary leasor
struggle with poverty made her
the
states
woman
and
economist she afterwards became.
But
in the
fact
that
her spirit was
the
victor,
and
not the victim, of the unfavourable elements
of her environment;
that
instead of succumbing,
as so many in her position might have done, she
soared-in
this
we
can only acknowledge, as she
herself would have acknowledged,
the
gift of
the
grace of God.
There was, indeed, much
in
the outward cir
cumstance of the childhood and youth of Mary
Slessor
that
was drab
and
sordid. As a little
girl she might have been seen playing
in
the
mean streets of
the
city
with
her
companions,
indistinguishable from
what the
passer-by would
designate gutter-children.
Her
wildness even
excited
the
apprehensions of
the
neighbours
that she would come to no good. It was to one
of these
that
Mary
attributed
her
first serious
thoughts. The children
had
run out
of
the
coid,
dark
streets into
the
warmth of an old
widow's room,
and,
as
they
stood round
the
glowing fire,
the
old widow exclaimed suddenly:
Do you see that
fire
? f
ye were
to put
your
hand
into
the
lowes
it
would be gey sair.
I t
would
burn
ye.
But i ye
dinna repent
and
believe
on
the Lord Jesus Christ, your soul
will
burn in
the
lowin', bleezin' fire for ever
and
ever "
Far more must be
attributed
to
her mother's
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arly
lii
e and Trials
watchful love and piety, which, in these dreary
surroundings, followed her children with unre
mitting care. Volumes are contained in the
touching record that
the
children were regularly
sent off to church with a drop of perfume on
their handkerchiefsand gloves,and a peppermint
in
their
pockets for sermon-time.
In
her
later
girlhood,
w
see
the
future mis·
sionary trained in
the
school of
hard
experience,
and the same mother-love prompting her amid
her untoward surroundings to
lay
hold of what
soever things were noble, true and
of good
report.
t the
early age of eleven she went
out to
earn a living.
Her
place of occupation was
the
textile works of Messrs. Baxter Brothers and
Company, Dundee. Like Livingstone she
worked at the loom. We can picture the great
throng of factory
girls making their way in the
grey of
the
early morning
to
the
scene of their
clattering, strenuous toil. Mary isamong them ;
often, doubtless, laughing and chattering like
the
rest, for all through her life she loved a joke ;
but
often, too, eagerly reading some well-loved
book as she walks. In the midst of her work
the book is propped open so that every now and
then she may snatch a glance at its pages.
It was not always light literature with which
she used thus to beguile
the
hours of labour.
It
is known
that
one of these books was Carlyle's
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8
Mary
Slessor
Sartor Resartus
A friend
had
lent
it
to her
one evening,
and
she became so absorbed
in
it
that she read on through the night, oblivious of
the flight of time, till she heard the factory bell
calling her again
to her
work.
Study
would
have been
hard
enough for
any
girl who
had
to
work from six a.m.
to
six p.m. ut for Mary
Slessor
the
conditions were additionally hard.
The household had to be set going before she
started
in
the
morning,
and
this necessitated
her rising
at
five o clock.
Nor were her evenings .always conducive
to
study. One night
in
each week was a
terror
to
Mary
and her
mother. On Saturdays
they
would
both
sit late
at
their work in
trembling, waiting for
the
sound of uncer-
tain steps that heralded the father s return.
His entrance into his home on this night he
made the occasion of a violent outburst of
drunken rage,
and
mother
and
daughter often
saw
the
supper, which
they
had
denied them-
selves to provide for him, thrown in anger on
the fire.
Into
such sore straits did the father s
intemperance bring
them
that there was scarcely
enough to feed
and
clothe the large family.
Not
seldom
it
was Mary s duty, on her return
from
the
factory,
to
catch
up
a parcel, which her
mother
had
prepared,
and to run
with
it by
back
streets
and
devious ways to the pawnbroker s.
With
the
proceeds she would
pay
off
the
more
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arly
lii
e and Trials
9
pressing debts, and for another week
the
wolf
would be
kept
from
the
door.
Besides her mother s influence there was
another which powerfully affected Mary
Slessor s life, namely, the Christian Church.
To-day, when organised Christianity has many
critics both without and within, it may be
asserted without fear of contradiction
that
with all its defects, fancied or real, there
neither was, nor is,
any
other organisation
in existence which could have done
what the
Christian Church did for Mary Slessor.
To outsiders, and perhaps sometimes
to the
workers themselves,
the
Wishart Church
in
the
east end of the Cowgate, Dundee, may have
seemed a prosaic institution. The casual
critic, dropping in upon its services or
passing
its
modest building above a series
of shops, may have marvelled that there
could be anything
in
the
appearance of
the
premises to
attract
or anything in the
routine of its Church life able permanently to
elevate, the dreary existence of any of the
thousands about its doors. He would mentally
compare its attractions unfavourably with those
of the public house,
the
theatre or the picture
palace.
f
only w
had
eyes
to
see w should
find that some of the greatest missionaries
the
world has ever known have not gone
out
from
Churches which set themselves to compete with
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10 Mary
lesaor
the
meretricious attractiveness of commercial
institutions,
but
from those humble
and
sober
companies of
the
followers of Christ who
find the supreme attraction of the Church
in
the realised presence of the Lord and in
the
spiritual fellowship of
believel B. It
was just such
a Church which was
the
garden of Mary Slessor s
spirit. To
that
soul, striving against
the
almost
overwhelming tragedy of its surroundings,
the
Church furnished, as nothing else could, the
power she needed from eternal springs. To the
hard-worked factory girl
it
gave new power
by
giving her the opportunity of new work.
When
the
Wishart Church, Dundee, deter
mined to open a mission
in
a room at 6, Queen
Street a
small side-thoroughfare nearly oppo
site Quarry Pend, one of the worst of the teeming
slums of the
city Mary
Slessor volunteered as
a teacher. She
had
regularly
attended the
Sabbath morning fellowship
and
week-night
prayer meetings of
the
Church,
and had
also
taught
a class
in
the
Sabbath School. More
over she
had
added to her labours
by
becoming
a distributor of
that
well-known illustrated
leaflet, The Monthly Visitor
In
a sense, there
fore, she
had
graduated as a missioner
to the
slums. She
had
also become a diligent Bible
student. To
the
end of her days
the
Bible was
her
chief book. The photograph of a page of
Mary Slessor s Bible is one of
the
most interest·
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Early Li fe and Trials
ing of
the
many illustrations in Mr Living
stone's fascinating volume.
So
the
factory-girl was installed as a mission
teacher.
f the
perilous narture of
the
work was
prophetic of her future, no less prophetic was the
manner in which she handled it. The gangs of
undisciplined roughs who infested
the
neigh
bourhood looked upon
the
mission teachers
as
fair game for their horseplay. When school
was over on Sunday afternoon it became neces
sary for
the
older men of
the
staff to form a
bodyguard for the smaller individuals
to
escort them out of the danger zone. Thus
Mary, whose short
stature
placed her among
the
protected class
of
smaller individuals, escaped
many occasions of molestation and, perhaps,
injury. Once, however, she had
to
face danger
alone. A gang of roughs had determined
to
break
up
the mission. One night
they
closed
in about her
on
the
street. The
brutal
leader
carried a leaden weight at
the
end of a cord and
swung it threateningly round her head. She
stood her ground. Nearer and nearer the mis
sile came. It shaved her brow. She never
winced. The weight crashed
to the
ground.
'She's game, boys,' he exclaimed. To show
their appreciation of her spirit they went in a
body to the meeting. There her bright eyes,
her sympathy,
and
her firmness shaped them
into order and attention. On
the
wall of one
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2
ary lessor
of her bush houses
in
West Africa there used to
hang a photograph of a
man
and
his wife
and
family. The
man
was the
lad
who had swung
the lead. On attaining a good position he had
sent her the photograph
in
grateful remem
brance of
what had
been
the
turning point in
his life.
So
the
wild, merry, eager-spirited factory
girl, whom her home difficulties might well
have rendered careless
or
sullen, was so guided
by
her saintly mother's example,
and
so inspired
by
the
ministrations of
the
Church,
that
ma.king
stepping stones of her very obstacles, she sur
mounted
the
first steep slopes of
that
eminent
and
heroic virtue
that
made her personal in
fluence a blessing
to
thousands,
and will
make
her name a lasting inspiration
to the
world.
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CHAPTER II.
SEND
ME.
T
HE incidents and considerations which
finally determine a missionary
to
em-
bark upon his life work and the stages by
which he reaches it are matters of paramount
interest
to the student
of Christian biography.
For in these things he can see the guiding
hand
of God. Into
that
mysterious region whence
comes the impulse
to
some and not
to
others
w may not enter.
But
we can often trace
quite definitely those incidents and conditions
which
the
impelling Spirit has employed
to
achieve the end.
In the case of Mary Slessor
w
find the in·
fluence of her mother and of her Church closely
intermingled. The United Presbyterian Church
of which Mrs. Slessor was a devoted member
had
always placed foreign missions
in
the
fore-
front of its activities. It
had
missions in India
China Japan Ka:ffraria and Calabar. The
visits of missionaries
to
the home Churches were
looked forward
to
by the members with tho
13
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14
ary Slessor
keenest interest. Their names were cherished
a nd their activities were eagerly followed
n
the
monthly
issionary Record
The sombre
church buildings
in
their sombre surroundings
were flooded for their members with all the
colour and romance of
the
orient and with
the
lofty spiritual excitement
that
always comes of
witnessing
the
Acts of
the
Apostles unfolded
in
their own day before their eyes. More, perhaps,
than they ever understood,
the
missionaries of
the
United Presbyterian Church were en
shrined in the prayers and interests of many an
obscure dweller in
the
tenements of Dundee.
One such was assuredly
Mrs.
Slessor, who, with
all her harassing domestic anxieties, followed
the
fortunes of the missionaries of her Church
with extraordinary keenness.
It
is interesting
to
observe that
an
address
delivered
by the
Rev. William Anderson
as
to
the
needs of Old Calabar, on
the
West Coast of Africa, so deeply moved
her
that
she desired to dedicate her son
John
to
the work.
Her
desire, although
not
granted in the way she expected, was neverthe
less fulfilled beyond all that she asked
or
dreamed.
John s
health failed
and
he
had to
emigrate to New Zealand, where he died a week
after landing. Mary s
bitter
grief
at the death
of a well-loved brother became, as it often
has
become
to
noble natures,
the
dark gateway
to
a
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Send Me
15
wider life. It gradually dawned upon her that
she herself might be intended
to
respond
to the
great call which her mother had hoped might
come
to her
son.
For
som e time
the
thought
remained with her locked in her heart. Her
nearest and dearest did
not
suspect her inclina
tion. And what was there
to
lead them
to
suspect
that
in
that
hard-working factory girl
going in
and
out among them was a potential
missionary of
the
first quality ? But
the
thought was not evanescent. t remained. t
had
taken up its abode with her. It grew.
Like the flickering needle of a compass that
swings from side
to
side
but
at
last
points
steadfastly to one fixed goal so she found that
the
thought
of her destination always came back
to Calabar.
Inured to hardship
and
need
it
was the
difficulty and need of this field
that
proved
the
chief
attraction
to
Mary Slessor. None knew
better
than
she the needs
and
difficulties of the
teeming tenements around her. But with
true
apostolic reasoning she saw that
the
needs of
Calabar were infinitely greater. No part of
the slums of Dundee was outside the sound of
the
church bells. The gospel was preached in
the Pends
and
alleys. But in Calabar the
great slum of all African heathenism there
were millions
to
whom the name of Christ was
unknown and
the
means of hearing of Christ
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6
ary Slessor
absolutely impossible.
The
children of Calabar
were born, lived
and
died
in
an
atmosphere of
spiritual darkness unrelieved by a solitary ray
of hope.
The good
and
generous aspirations
that
spring
up in
every
human
heart, sprang
up
also
in
those savage breasts,
but
finding no
sanction or encouragement
n
all
the dark
world
about them, wilted and withered and were lost
in
the heavy gloom of superstition and cruelty,
of sensuality
and
bloodshed, of craft
and
treachery,
that hung
like
an
impenetrable
cloud upon their lives from the cradle to
the
grave. These facts Mary Slessor knew
and
weighed. There could be no comparison be
tween
the
needs of Dundee
and the
needs of
Cala.bar.
To one of Mary Slessor s sympathetic nature
the story of the Calabar Mission must have
made a profound appeal.
Its
interest
lay in
the fact that the mission originated among the
descendants of the original natives of Calabar.
or centuries Calabar had been
the
most prolific
hunting-ground for the
slave dealer. Crowds
of
the
hapless victims,
torn
from
their
burning
homes
and
slaughtered families, were shipped
across the Atlantic,
and
helped to furnish the
negro population of
the
United States. When
the
noble work of Abraham Lincoln was com
plete,
and
the slaves were emancipated, some of
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Bend Me
17
them
living in Jamaica turned their thoughts
in
sympathy
to
their fatherland across
the
sea
and longed for their benighted kinsmen to en
joy the blessings which the,Gospel had brought
to them.
The Jamaica. Presbytery eagerly took the
matter
up, and eight of
their
number dedi·
cated themselves for service i called upon.
But
the
home officials were unsympathetic ;
the
climate of Calabar, they said, was dangerous.
But the brave Jamaica Presbytery, nothing
daunted, made all their preparations
in
faith, and
chose, as first agent for their society, the Rev.
Hope
M
Waddell. Everything was now ready
in
Jamaica everything but a connection with
Calabar. The sacrifice was laid, but the fire
from heaven had
not yet
descended. The way
in which the necessary connection was provided
is one of
the
many romances of modern missions
and
illustrates
the
profound
truth
of Cowper s
words:
Deep
in
unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,
He treasures up His bright designs
And works
His
sovereign
will
Many years previously a slaver,
in
the course
of its nefarious pursuits, was wrecked upon the
coast of Calabar--a coast which had doubtless
B
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8
ary
Sl essor
provided
it
with many of its victims. The
natives, instead of wreaking
their
vengeance
upon their would-be captors, treated them
kindly.
Among
the
recipients of their kindness was
the
ship s surgeon, Dr. Ferguson. The poor
natives had cast
their
bread upon
the
waters
and
were
to
find
it
after many
days.
In
course of time Dr. Ferguson was enabled to
return to Scotland by another slaver sailing for
the West Indies Observe the devious route,
but note the purpose of it. After this, perhaps
as a result of this voyage, Dr. Ferguson became
ship s surgeon on a vessel plying between Liver
pool and Jamaica. He became well known in
the Colony. He got to know of the longing of
the
Jamaica
Presbytery to send missionaries
to
Calabar.
He
remembered
the
kindness of
the
natives of Calabar to a shipwrecked mariner. He
instituted
enquiries in Calabar through captains
of
trading vessels to whom he was hospitable.
He received in 1843 a memorial from a local king
and seven chiefs
o:ff
ering ground and a welcome
to any missionaries who might care to come. He
communicated
the
information
to
the
Jamaica
Presbytery.
The
matter
was settled. The
United Presbyterian Church took over
the s-
sion. The Rev. Hope Waddell and several
assistants sailed in 1846. One of the first sub-
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Bend
Me
9
ecriptions to the mission was £1,000 from the
surgeon of
the
slave ship which
the
tempest
many
years before
had
cast on the coast of
Calabar ·
In the words of the poem already quoted :
God moves
in
a mysterious way
His wonders
to
perform,
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon
the
storm.
This romantic story was fresh n the minds of
members of the United Presbyterian Church at
the
time when Mary Slessor was a devoted stu-
dent of the pages of its Missionary Record. The
narrative of pathetic faith so wonderfully re-
warded must
have found
an
instant welcome
in her warm heart. When in 1874
the
news of
the death of avid Livingstone stirred all
Britain with missionary enthusiasm,
it
became
impossible for Mary Slessor to keep her cherished
desire
any
longer to herself.
Her
sisters were
now in good situations,
and
she saw her way
to
continue her support of the home. The call,
she felt, had come, Whom shall I send,
and
who
will
go for us
?
and
she replied, Here
am I ; send me. She disclosed her secret
first to her mother,
and met
with a glad
consent. When her friends learnt of her
desire, some encouraged her and some tried
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20
ary SkssO T
to dissuade her. But
her
decision was now
made. Though
the
whole world might deny
her, she
had
known the Spirit of
the
Highest
and
could say,
Stand thou
on that side for
on
this
am I.
In
May, 1875,
at the
age of twenty-six
and a
half, she offered
her
services to the Foreign
·Mission Board. Though
her heart
was
set
on
Calabar she very commendably offered herself
for
any
field for which she might be required.
So
satisfactory were
the
reports received of her
work
in
connection with
the
Church
in
Dundee,
and so favourable was the impreBBion which her
personality created,
that
she was accepted
at
once as a prospective teacher. After three
months' special training
in
Edinburgh
at the
Normal School in
the Canongate-a
period
during which she formed life-long friendships,
and
profoundly influenced those who came
in
contact with
her-the
Committee decided
to
send her
out to
Calabar. She was now,
says her biographer,
twenty-eight
years of
age, mature in mind
and
body; she retained
the freshneBB
of girlhood, was vivacious
and
sympathetic, very human
and
likeable,
with a
heart
as tender
and
wistful
as
a
child's. What specially distinguished her were
her humility
and
the width
and depth
of
her love.
She sailed for Ca labar on August 5th, 1876, by
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Send Me
2
the steamer Ethiopia As she was waiting
to
embark she noticed a large number of casks of
spirit which were being carried on board
and
were destined for the West Coast of Africa.
The memory of the
tragedy that had darkened
her own home rose within her. " Scores of
casks " she exclaimed ruefully,
"and
only one
missionary "
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CHAPTER
III.
MARY
SLESSOR S ARRIVAL
ON
THE FIELD.
U
p
to this point Mary Slessor s life had been
spent in the grey latitudes of the north.
Its greater part had been confined
to
the un
lovely streets of a
city
and the cheerless walls of
a
great
factory. She had lived
amid
the
roar
of traffic
and the
din of
the
loom.
But
town
bred though she was, she had in her
that
strange spirit that has made her countrymen
the greatest travellers and colonisers in the
world. We can understand, therefore, some
thing of the intense interest and excitement
with which
her
eager spirit welcomed
the
fas
cinating experiences of her voyage towards the
tropics. She would note how the prevalent
greyness of the northern skies yielded to
an
all-encircling splendour ; how the sea
turned
from grey to green
and
then from green
to
deepest purple ; how
the
bracing, chilly
air
became mild and humid, and then further
south assumed a torrid heat.
Her excitement
must
have reached its highest
pitch when the
great
steamer slewed
round
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On the ield
3
from its ocean course and took a north
easterly direction
up the
broad estuary of
the
Cross
and
Calabar Rivers. Here at last
was the very land of which she had heard
and read
and
dreamed and for which her
prayers had long been offered. Great man
grove forests were on her right
and the
vast
flat plain of
the
delta of
the
Niger on
her left.
s
the vessel ascended the great
river flocks of bright-coloured parrots would
fly out of the forest an alligator would suddenly
splash into
the
water from
the
bank and now
and
then a native in his canoe would sail down
the
stream.
t
last
the
steamer drew
in
to
the
red clay cliff upon
the
right and there in a
hollow of the cliff were the crowded mud walls
of Duke Town
the
centre of
the
Calabar Mission.
Shabby and
unromantic it looked as
it
lay broil
ing in the hot rays of a brilliant sun. And yet
to
Mary Slessor
it
was
not
unromantic. The
supreme romance of the bloodless victory of
the
Gospel for her eyes clothed those crowded
and
unsightly mud walls with beauty.
That
hill
behind the town she knew had been the very
place where
the
dead bodies of
the
natives used
to be cast into
the
bush
to
become
the
food of
wild beasts. And that hill was now crowned
with the mission buildings. Here before her
eyes was
the witness of things not seen. Those
buildings stood to her for
the
token of answered
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24
ary
lessor
prayer. For were they
not
the consummation of
the
longing of
the
negroes
in
far c;>ff
Jamaica,
that their fatherland might share those blessings
which the
Gospel
had
brought
to
them
?
The
God who had answered their prayer
had
now
enlisted her
in
His service for the furtherance
of His purposes of mercy for mankind.
ut
responsive as Mary Slessor s vivacious
nature was
to
all
the
elements of interest, ex
citement and romance of her novel surroundings,
she was a ware
that
beneath
the
gleaming sur
face,
that
seemed bright
and
fair, there lay
sinister depths
that
harboured incredibly
terrible things.
f
one
part
of
the
world needs
the Gospel more sorely than
any
other it is Cala
bar. Desolated
by the
iniquitous slave
trade
of centuries,
the
wretched inhabitants
had
no
connected records of a
past
of their
r c ~ n l y
a grim
and
awful tradition of perpetual raids
by
pitiless traders upon
their
defenceless homes.
In
their history,
i
history
it
could be called,
there was nothing noble, no outstanding hero,
no period of progress or of peace to inspire after
generations. As
they
looked back upon
the
past
of their race
they
saw
it
shrouded
in
clouds
of cruelty, fear, superstition
and
uncertainty.
When they tried
to
fly from the slave-dealers,
who preyed upon their coasts,
and to take
refuge
in
the
hinterland of
the
Sahara
and
Souda.n,
they
found themselves
at the
mercy
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n the Fie ld
5
of the outposts of the higher civilizations of
Egypt
and
Arabia
by
which
they
were en
slaved and en.shed. Thus harried on every side
they
betook themselves a w:fetched and utterly
demoralised folk without a past and with nothing
to
hope from the future to
the
poisonous
swamps
and
malarial forests where they dragged
out
a miserable
and
filthy
existence the
very
outcasts and slum-dwellers of African pa
ganism. s if their lot were
not
already
sufficiently wretched
they clung with strange
obstinacy to certain superstitions
that
made
life more miserable still.
f
twins were born
they
believed one of
the
two was
the
child of an evil spirit.
The
hapless
mother who herself shared
the
superstition was
regarded as having been guilty of gross sin
and was forthwith turned
out
into
the
bush in
all her weakness. She must not
tread the
ordinary
paths
used
by
her
tribe for
to
tread
them would be to pollute
them
so that they
could never be used again. She
must
make a
path for herself into the untrodden bush there
to
perish of starvation or
to
be devoured by
wild beasts.
s
for
the
twins since it could
not
be decided which was
the
child of
the
evil spirit
both of them were placed in a large calabash
or jar either alive or more often after their backs
had
been broken and
then
were conveyed
through a hole broken n
the
wall of the
hut
to
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26
ary
81 uaor
a solitary pa.rt of
the
jungle and there left to
the
wild beasts
and the
insects.
f a death occurred,
the
conclusion was
that
someone
had
been responsible for it. The witch·
doctor was sent for, and he proceeded to note
down
the
names of all those whom he proclaimed
guilty.
The
only way
in
which
the
accused
could clear themselves was
by
undergoing
the
ordeal of the poison bean or of
the
boiling oil. A
poisonous bean ground
to
powder and mingled
with water was offered
to
the
proscribed wretch.
f
he died his guilt was proven. f he survived
then he was innocent. The ordeal of the boiling
oil was carried
out
by
pouring oil brought
to
the
boiling point over
the
suspected person s
hands. f
they
blistered he was guilty and was
put
to
death.
f
a chief died, his wives, or
a
selection of
them, were slaughtered
a this
grave
n
order to
bear him company
in
the
other world. Such
customs as these were fastened upon
them
by
immemorial usage. To omit them would in
their eyes be an offence.
By
observing them
they fulfilled their distorted idea of righteousness.
Thus the changes and chances of this mortal
life, which bear heavily enough upon those who
have all the consolations of Christian enlighten
ment, were
ma de by
their delusion
the
occasion of still more cruel blows.
The Dundee factory-girl was
pitted
against all
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n the iitd 27
this. Her presence on
the
field meant that
she was
the
pledged antagonist of all
that
brought needless suffering on any human being
of every custom however
d ~ e p l y - r o o t e d
which
obscured
the
thought of a loving God. Her
problem was one which might have baffled a
statesman with
the
resources of military power
at
his disposal
and
assuredly
it
would have
baffled this unarmed Scotch lassie had she
not
been endowed with a genius which can only be
called divine. The entirely original manner in
which she grappled with her task
the
success
which she
achieved a success which was
not
only officially acknowledged
by
a royal
decoration
but
which gave her
the
undisputed
homage of thousands of natives and the im-
pression she produced on those who knew her
constitute her title to be called
the
most remark-
able woman missionary who ever lived.
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CHAPTER
IV.
MARY $LESSOR
AT
WORK.
HEN
Mary Slessor arrived
in
September,
1876,
the
Calabar Mission had been
instituted
thirty
years. There were twelve
Europeans on
the staff-four
ordained mission-
aries, four men teachers
and
four women
teachers;
of natives there were one ordained
missionary and eighteen agents. The sphere of
work was confined to the triangle of
land that
lay
in
the
confluence of
the
Cross
and
Calabar
Rivers.
The
principal stations were Duke
Town, Old Town
and
Creek Town.
At first Mary Slessor lived
at
the Mission
Buildings on i s s i o n Hill which she
had
seen from
the
steamer on her first arrival
at
Duke Town.
She lived under
the
somewhat ascetic care of
the
veteran Ill1Ss1 naries Daddy
and
Mammy
Anderson.
It
was intended
that
for a time she should look round and become
acquainted with
the conditions of her new life.
Her
vivacious spirits,
that
afterwards found their
channel in such splendid achievement, were at
first rather trying to her seniors. To let off
the
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ary
lessor at Work 29
energy that had been repressed in the Mission
House she would climb
any
tree
that
took her
fancy. She boasted
that
she
had
climbed
every tree worthy of the na:ine between Duke
Town
and
Old Town. Sometimes her escapades
made her late for meals, and she was solemnly
warned by Mrs Anderson that a repetition of
the
offence would mean going without food.
The offence was repeated and
the
penalty duly
announced. But Daddy Anderson smug
gled biscuits and bananas to her. The young
adventuress was sure
that it was with
the
con
nivance of
the
apparently Rhadamanthine
Mammy.
The
task to
which she was first
set
was simple.
t
was
to
teach in the day-school on the Mission
Hill, and
to
visit in
the
yards
both
on week-days
and Sundays. Later on she made a tour of
the
stations. Most of
the
journey
lay
through
the
bush,
and
involved long
and
fatiguing
marches, climbing, jumping and wading-a
burdensome enterprise for older people, but
to her a thoroughly enjoyable excursion.
In
some of the districts a white woman had never
been seen before, and the children
ran
away
from her, screaming with fright. The women
clustered round, gesticulating
and chattering
and touching her. When their attentions be
came too burdensome the chiefs would drive
them
away with
a
whip.
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30
ary 81 esaor
Here
is
a specimen of the kind of work which
the
new missionary
had
to
do
in
Duke
Town on
Sundays. Her first duty is to look out some
illustrated texts, which she sends
round
to the
leading natives with a kind message reminding
them that
Mr
Anderson expects
to
see them at
the service. Going
out
she finds
a
man sitting
at
the
door of his
hut
rocking himself
to and
fro
in sorrow. Mary learns that his only child
has died
and
has been buried in the house, and,
according
to custom,
the
family is sitting in filth,
squalor
and
drunkenness. She enters
and
finds the mother sitting with bowed
head
over
the
grave,
the
form of which
can
be distinctly
seen
under
a blue cloth that covers the ground.
To her attempted consolation
the
man replies
that
he would not mind
i
God had taken the
child. His sorrow is that someone
had
be
witched it. The woman is equally inconsolable,
but
is softened when Mary speaks
to
her
of her
own mother in Scotland, who finds comfort in
the
thought
of the reunion beyond.
In the next
yard she finds a few slave girls.
She speaks to them and they listen respectfully.
Another
yard
is crowded with women, some
eating, some sleeping, some dressing each other s
hair, some lounging half-naked on the ground
goss1pmg.
They
take
her to an inner yard
where a fine-looking young woman is being
fattened
for her future husband. She is scorn-
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ary ksaor at Work
3
ful, and Mary speaks
to
her sternly, leaving her
half crest-fallen, half defiant.
In
the
next
house
the
master is dead, and the mistress, a hardened
and repulsive woman, sits
n ~
room filled with
bush, skulls, sacrifices and charms. A number
of half-starved, cowed women and girls covered
with dirt and sores are quarrelling over a pipe.
The shrill voice
and
long arms of
the
mistress
settle the matter, and
they
call on Mary to
speak. After many interruptions she secures
a hearing
and
leaves them impressed.
Further
on a husband brings his woe-begone
wife, who has lost five children, and asks Mary
to
give her some medicine. She speaks of
the
resurrection. A crowd gathers
and
listens in
tently. When she says that even twin-children
are safe with God, the effect was almost the
same as when St.
Paul
mentioned the Gentiles
in his defence before the enraged mob in the
Temple.
They
gave him audience
unto
this
word and then lifted up
their
voices
and
said
'Away with such a fellow from the
earth.'
Mary s listeners were
not
so violent, but they
started
and
shrugged their shoulders and slunk
away with looks of terror. Her Sunday visiting
takes her through much
that
is nauseating;
hovels little better than ruins pools of filth
that
send
out
pestilential odours ; faces stamped
with starvation
and
misery; bodies covered
with sores ; inmates huddled together
and
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3
ary 81 essor
clamouring only for food. With this varied
picture of animalism, squalor, suffering
and
despair stamped vividly upon her mind, the
young missionary
turns
with a reinforced
determination towards
the
only earthly remedy
for wretchedness like this, and prepares for
the
four o clock service at Mission
Hill
f
the
phrase
in
journeyings
often
is
descriptive of
the
apostolic life,
then
Mary
Slessor
in
this respect was
truly
apostolic.
Her
work often involved long and . perilous
journeys through
the
bush or along the great
rivers fringed with the exposed and tangled
roots of
the
forest trees which overhung them.
A chief, living some thirty miles
up
the
estuary on
the
opposite bank, invited her to
visit his village. To her own people
it
seemed
a hazardous expedition, for
thirty
miles
to an
African
in
those
parts is
more
than
two
hundred
to
a European. All
the
place
is
in
excitement. Half the population follows her
to the
beach. Women, generally
not
allowed
to
be seen
in
public, are waiting
at
their yards
to
embrace her and
to
charge those concerned
that
she shall be well cared for. The king has
lent
her
his
state
canoe, repainted for
the
occa
sion. Kindly natives have strewn rice-bags
to
form
a
couch for her,
and
with delicate thought
fulness have erected a little screen
of
matting
so
that
she shall have privacy.
At
last, when
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ary
8le880 I
at Work
33
darkness has already fallen, the command " Sio
udeii
"
is given,
and
amid shouts
and
cries of
farewell more than thirty paddles strike
the
water at once
and the
g r e ~ canoe shoots into
mid-streani,
the
dark faces
on
the beach disap
pear in the night and the spot where she em
barked is marked only by the red glow of
torches on
the
black ripples of
the
river.
For
a time Mary tries to
read
by candle-light
in her improvised cabin,
but
the
clamour of
the
paddlers, who are extemporising songs in her
honour, is more distracting than the din of
the
factory-loom. For the loom never sang such
things
as
Ma,
our beautiful, beloved mother
is on board, Ho Ho Ho " and such is the
song of these devoted paddlers. Reading is
abandoned, and
at
last the gentle movement of
the
boat
and
the
monotonous throbbing of the
tom-tom " lull her to sleep, and though the
dark
waters beneath
her
are infested with alli
gators
and
snakes, she sleeps as soundly as if
she were in her bed at home. At dawn, after
ten hours' paddling, she is carried ashore over
golden
sand and
under great trees
and
deposited
in the chief's compound amongst goats, dogs
and
fowls.
Her arrival created an immense sensation.
Crowds poured
in
upon her from far and
near. ·Many had never seen a white woman
before. Doubtful men and women were forcibly
0
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4
ary
lessor
dragged to
her and
made to touch
her
skin.
At meal times a favoured few were
permitted
to see her eat and drink and they shouted
descriptions of the performance to the less
fortunate ones who were excluded. ay after
day she prescribed bandaged cut out garments
and taught
the secrets of starching
and
ironing.
Every
morning
and
every evening a service
was held and
it
was with difficulty she
prevented one merging into the other. On
Sunday she placed a
table
with a white cloth
on it
in
the corner of the yard. On
this
were
placed Bible and hymn book. Fierce-looking
noisy men who came
in
from a distance
and
joined the crowd became strangely silent.
Never had she more appreciative audiences.
Many
heard
the story of Christ for the first time.
In
the evening the multitude was so great that
her voice could barely reach them all and at
the end
many
pressed
about
her
to
bid
her
good night with deep feeling and then vanished
into the darkness.
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CHAPTER V
A
MYSTERIOUS
CHECK AND A
PERILOUS
ENTERPRISE
T has been
truly
said that God buries His
workers but carries on His work. Some
times the workers seem
to
be
cut off
before
their time like Murray McCheyne and
Ion
Keith-Falconer. Sometimes like Robert Moffat
and Hudson Taylor and Griffith
John and John
Paton they die full of years. But sometimes
while the worker still lives on his work receives
a check
just
when it is on
the
verge of some
great fruition. All the promise seems suddenly
blighted. The training
and
experience which
might have accomplished so much are rendered
of no use. Such a mysterious arrest came
to
the
work of Mary Slessor.
t
will have been gathered already
that
she
had
attained remarkable facility in
the
language.
The natives used
to
say
that
she knew their
language
better
than they knew it themselves.
This was due to her
habit
of unconsciously
adopting
the
direct method. She learnt more
of the speech from constant intercourse with
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36 ary lessor
the natives than she ever
learnt
from books. It
is clear also
that
she
had
the
gift so invaluable
to a missionary of mixing with
her
fellows
and
of winning their affection and respect. More
over while holding fast to the great vital truths
of the Gospel she discerned at once its appli
cation to the conditions about her. She trans
lated
the
Bible
not
into native letters
but
into native life. She was supremely gifted
with
an
overflowing
sympathy
and a sound
common sense. She could detect with unerring
intuition when a situation demanded severity
and when it could be saved with a smile. She
had
a fund of energy which was directed
by
an
unflagging zeal. This extraordinary combina
tion of gifts marked her out for a career of
quite exceptional usefulness. And yet
just
when achievement was almost within
her
grasp
it seemed as if all
her
purposes were to be
brought
to
nought.
First of all in 1883 at
the age of thirty-four
her health collapsed and she was ordered home.
She was so frail that she had to be carried on
board
and
it
was considered doubtful whether
she would survive
the
voyage. With her was
a girl
twin
whom she
had
rescued. She
bad
saved both a boy and a girl but during her
temporary absence from
her
house the relatives
had
stolen the
boy
away
and
killed him.
She was determined that the girl should grow
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Mysterious heck and Perilous Enterprise
7
up and confute their fears, and therefore
would
not
allow
her
to
be
left behind.
After eight months rest at
home, just when
she
had
intimated to the Foreign Mission Com-
mittee that her
health was restored
and that
she was
ready
to return, her younger sister Janie
fell ill and it became evident that a change to a
milder climate was necessary.
In
her
despera-
tion she made the extraordinary proposal to
the Foreign Mission Committee that she should
take
her sister with
her
to
Calabar-a
proposal
that was wisely set aside.
At
last, acting on
the recommendation of a friend, she decided
to
take her
sister with
her
to
Devonshire,
and
wrote to
the
Committee asking whether
in
the
event of the way becoming clear she would be
allowed to
return
to Calabar,
or
whether she
was to consider herself finally separated from
the Mission. The Board replied sympathetic-
ally
that
in
consideration of
her
work
they
would gladly continue her home allowance for
three months longer. With characteristic
independence, Mary refused to accept more
than two months allowance, and so voluntarily
with an aching heart cut herself adrift from
the
service of
the
Church.
Janie s health was improving in Devonshire,
but
again, when it seemed possible for Mary
Slessor to resume her work, another event occur-
red which threatened to prevent her return. Her
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8
Mary kssor
sister Susan
in
Scotland suddenly died .
Mary
had
now
the
full responsibility of
the
up
keep of the home and yet was earning nothing.
Her mother her invalid sister
and the
African
baby
all needed provision
and
care.
It
was
imperative
that
Mary should
return to
her
work
but
again came
the
mysterious hindering
of her plans. The Committee
had
consented
to
her re-instatement
and
her passage was already
booked when her mother suddenly failed
and
took
to
her bed. She could not be left
without care
and
yet i her daughter stayed
with
her
she would be unable
to
provide for her.
At
this crisis Mary wrote a pathetic letter
to
an old Scottish factory friend
and
implored
her
to
come
and
take
her place in
the
Devonshire
home. With
the
prompt readiness of
true
friendship she came and
thus
permitted Mary
Slessor to return to
what
was
to
be
the
crowning
work of her
life the
conquest of
the
fierce
people of Okoyong.
In 1886 she was back
but
the letters from
her dear ones at home which
had
always sus
tained her
in her
labours hitherto were no
longer
to
comfort her
in
her greatest achieve
ment
of all. The heavy news came
that
Mrs.
Slessor
had
died suddenly
at the
beginning of
1887
and
three months
later
her invalid sister
Janie
passed a way
and
was laid beside her
mother
in
the Topsham cemetery.
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Mysterious heck and Perilous Enterprise 39
To the lonely missionary these losses were an
inexpressible grief.
ut
her mother being
dead
yet spake to her On her last furlough, when
Mary had asked her whether she would be
willing for her
to
face
the
perils of
the
interior
i the opportunity should open, her mother had
replied : " You are
my
child given
to
me by
God,
and
I have given you back
to
Him. When
He needs you, and where
He
sends you, there
I would have you be." These words Mary never
forgot. They were to her like a solemn bene
diction on the work that she was
about to
under
take. " Heaven s now nearer to me
than
Britain," she wrote, "
and
no one
will
be anxious
about me i I go up-country."
The new
and unevangelised territory
to
which
Mary Slessor felt
the
Spirit urging her lay
where
the
sides of the angle formed by the
junction of the Cross
and
Calabar rivers broaden
out
into
the
interior.
The
inhabitants be
long physically to a higher
type
than
the
people of Calabar ; they are taller and more
muscular,
the
nose is higher,
the
chin firmer,
and the
eye more fearless
and
piercing than
that
of
the
languid negro of
the
coast.
ut
on
the other
hand the
worst qualities of heath
enism received in
them
a terrible emphasis.
There was no form of iniquity in which
they
did not indulge. They were utterly lawless
and contemptuous of authority. Slave-stealing,
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4 ary Slessor
plunder of property and
theft
were the com
monplaces of their everyday life. They
hated
the
Calabar people
on
the coast because of their
more favoured position for trade. A state of
perpetual hostility existed between them.
Each sought to outdo the other n the
number of heads captured or the number of
slaves stolen. All efforts
to
bring
them
to
gether had been in vain.
Even
the British
authority
was defied and messages from the
Consul were set
at
naught.
The value set on human life-which is re
garded as one of
the
chief characteristics of
civilisation-was
at
the
lowest conceivable ebb.
Human
sacrifice was common amongst them.
Only a few months before
Miss
Slessor
started
on
her
expedition a chief died
and
with him
were buried eight slave men eight slave wo
men ten girls ten boys and four free wives
forty
in
all
I t
was estimated
that
within a
radius of twenty miles
there
were no less than
one
hundred
and fifty such sacrifices a year.
The ordeal of the poison
bean
and of the boiling
oil
must have
carried off
an
equal number.
Twin-murder was practised even more vigor
ously
than
in
Calabar. The chief articles of
commerce
that
entered Calabar-gin, guns and
chains-fairly
summed up the recurring se
quence of
the social life. Gin was in every
home. Gin was given
to every babe. Gin was
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M ysttrious heck and Perilous nterprise
4
the
wage for work. Gin gave rise to quarrels.
Quarrels were
settled with
guns. After
the
guns had done
their
work the chains were
fastened
on
the prisoners.
St. Francis preached
to
the birds. But the
missionary who would preach to the people of
Okoyong had a task almost as hopeless
as that
of preaching
to
a
jungle of tigers. One Calabar
teacher had tried it but after a shooting affray
had
had
to fly for his life. Another had
been
seized
and held
for a
ransom
of rum. Others
had attempted
missionary work amongst these
savages
with as
little success. t was
to
this
perilous field
that
Mary Slessor
had
been look-
ing
amid
all the strange hindrances that had
beset
her
return from
her
last troubled furlough.
As at the first her desire
turned
always
to
Calabar so now it was Okoyong
that
was
written
on her
heart Her already tested ability and
experience
and
her
fervently expressed desire
overcame the reluctance of the Foreign Mission
Committee
and
permission was given for her
to launch out
upon
what seemed indeed
to
be a
forlorn hope. But the Christian leader
in
every
age s always
to
be found
at
the head of a forlorn
hope.
And
it
was
the
position of Mary Slessor
now.
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CHAPTER
VI.
THE
GREAT
ACfilEVEMENT.
T must. not be imagined that Mary Slessor
entered upon
the
crowning stage of her
life work gaily and light-heartedly. She
had
counted
the
cost. In a letter home she wrote,
I
am going
to
a new tribe up-country, a fierce,
cruel people,
and
everyone tells me
that they
will
k ll
me.
Protracted
negotiations with
the
natives preceded
her
settlement amongst
them. Three times iss Slessor accompanied
the
negotiating
party, but
found men and
women armed and sullen and unwilling to
promise anything. I had often a lump in
my
throat,
she wrote,
and my
courage re
peatedly threatened
to
take wings and
fly
away.
At last, in June, 1888, she took her courage in
both hands and went
up the
river to make
final arrangements for
her
sojourn. King Eyo
of Calabar, as on a previous occasion, lent her
his
state
canoe, and
as
it moved swiftly
at
the
stroke of
the
paddlemen over
the
silver surface
of
the
river, through scenes of tropical beauty
4 .I
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The
reat
chievement
4
and
luxuriance, she meditated on the grave un
certainty
and
danger of her enterprise
and
committed herself anew
to
the keeping of God.
The dangers were indeed great.
Her
crew of
paddlers were
the
sworn foes of
the
people of
Okoyong. A single unwise word might turn
the expedition into a tragedy.
Her
reception was
better
than
she
had
feared.
The
human
spirit is the same all the world over.
The fact that this defenceless woman
had
come
alone upon such
an
expedition touched the
wild natives with admiration. Their chivalry
was enlisted. Men, women
and
children noisily
crowded
about
her, acclaiming her as
Mother.
She stayed
the
night at Ekenge, the chief's
village, and held family worship with
the
crew
of her canoe gathered
about her. A crowd o
half-naked savages looked on with wonder at
the
proceedings and listened n astonishment
to
the
words repeated
in unison,
God so loved
the world. The women held her fast in
talk
to a late hour until, worn
out
with
the
strain
o this first fateful day, she retired to
the
hut set
apart
for her.
The next day began
in
such a manner as to
test the
nerve of
the
stoutest missionary. The
village was aroused by
the
sound of firing.
Two women
had
been fired on from the bush.
In a moment every man
had
his gun and sword
and
was searching for
the
assailant.
It
was
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44
ary 81 essor
characteristic of Mary s intention
to
identify her-
self with
the
people from
the
outset,
that
instead
of remaining inher hut she went out with one of
the
search parties. But
the
labyrinth of jungle
was too thick
and the task
proved fruitless.
Going
to
a village two miles further on
Mary
interviewed
the
chiefs
and by
her
frankness
and
fearlessness won
them
over
and
got them to promise ground for a schoolhouse.
From the
first she displayed
that
power of
negotiating and of foresight which was one of
the secrets of her success. She bargained that
the
Mission Buildings should enjoy
the
same
privileges as those of
Calabar that
they
should
be a place of refuge for criminals, those
charged with witchcraft, or those liable
to
be
killed for
the
dead, until their case could be
taken into consideration. She wisely chose
the two sites at a distance of
about
two miles
from each other in order
that
the
benefits of
the
concession might extend over as wide
an
area
as
possible. Then,
in
a deluge of rain
that
soaked her
to the
skin, she returned in
safety to her starting point, the initial stage
of her enterprise successfully accomplished.
By
August, all preparations for
her
final
departure for Okoyong were ready. Never
surely did
any
missionary enter upon a great
undertaking in more depressing circumstances.
King Eyo with unremitting kindness
had
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The
reat
chievement
placed his canoe and paddlers again
at
her
disposal.
ut
there
the
regal glamour ceased.
n air of deep gloom hung over all the natives,
who came in a crowd to bid her farewell. They
were certain they would never see her face
again. When Mary Slessor and her five orphan
children were stowed a way
in
the part
allotted to
them,
and the boat
swept
up the
stream
in
a
deluge of
rain
that further darkened
the
dreary
day, the pioneer felt as hopeless as those who
had just bidden her farewell. ut worse .was
to follow.
Landing
in
the
fading light of a rainy day,
there
lay
a journey of four miles through a
dripping forest to Ekenge. The procession
was headed by a boy
about
eleven years of age,
tired and afraid, a box containing tea, sugar and
bread upon his head, his garments, soaked with
the rain, clinging to his body, his feet slipping
in
the
black mud. Behind him came another
boy, eight years old,
in
tears, bearing a kettle
and
pots. With these a little fellow of three,
weeping loudly, tried
hard
to keep up, and
close at his heels trotted a maiden of five, also
shaken with sobs. Their white mother formed
the rear. On one
arm
was slung a bundle,
and
astride her shoulders sat a baby girl, no light
burden, so that she had to pull herself along
with the
aid of twigs and branches. She was
singing nonsense songs to lighten the way
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6
ary BkssO I
for the little ones (surely
an
echo of the apos
tolic songs
in the
prison of Philippi),
but
the
tears were perilously
near
her own eyes.
The long four-mile
tramp
was
at last
over,
and the
village of Ekenge was reached. ut
it
was deserted. The chief s mother had died
that
morning,
and
almost all
the
population had
gone
to
the
carnival. Fire
and
a little water
were obtained. The children were undreBSed
and
hushed
to
sleep,
and the
newly arrived
missionary
sat
in her wet garments
and
waited.
One of
her
helpers at length appeared, with the
news
that the
crew were exhausted,
and
refused
to
bring anything
up
to
Ekenge
that
night.
There was no food,
the next
day was Sunday,
the children were naked and she herself was
wet to the skin. With
that
instant decision
which characterised
her
she plunged, bootless
and hatless, into the dark forest again. Stum
bling, falling, hearing
the
screams of night birds
and
the flapping of their wings, shouting ever
and
anon
to
frighten wild beasts from her
path
and catching the weird echo of her own
voice amongst
the dark
stems, she came
at last
upon
the
glimmering river ; splashing into
the
water where
the
canoe was moored, she threw
back
the
cover where
the
sleeping men
lay
and
routed
them
out, dazed
and
dumbfounded.
With
that
mixture of biting sarcasm
and
humour of which she was
past
mistreBB
she
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The reat chievement
47
so skilfully handled these dusky giants that
the
bulk of what she needed was there
and then transferred to Ekenge, and by mid
night the worst was over.
Sunday saw the villagers trailing
back to
their village, ill-tempered, bedraggled
and
debauched,
and
only partly recovered from
the
effects of the funeral wake which
they
had
been attending. They were in the worst pos
sible mood to receive any kind of instruction.
The messenger whom God
had
sent to them
lay
stiff and weary
after
the experiences of the
previous day;
her
feet were bleeding from
wounds which prevented her wearing boots for
six weeks afterwards ; the rain was falling in
persistent torrents ; everywhere was mud and
filth ; she herself was thrice-dispirited.
Yet
so great was her desire
to
begin the work that
she gathered a few of the women
about
her,
and
told
them
something of
the
Son of God who
had come
to
make their lives happier. Thus,
in circumstances which might have utterly
dismayed
the bravest heart, passed
the
mis
sionary s first memorable Sunday amid
the
savages of Okoyong a Sunday redeemed from
the
blank misery of despair
by
the
messenger s
heroic determination to begin at once, however
feebly, to attack this citadel of Satan.
t is hard for those accustomed to the steady
routine of civilised life to understand the chaotic
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48
ary
lesaor
nd
disordered conditions o existence upon
which
Mary
Slessor
h d
entered.
t
was
fantastic nightmare of horror. The
de th
of
a relative
in
a neighbouring village would be
the
signal for wholesale emigration to the scene
of death in order to join in revels of drunkenness,
dancing
nd
bestiality. Back
they
would come
when
the
revels were over, drunken, besotted
nd angry, fighting one another or nursing some
grudge nd
hatching some plot
o
assassination
against a group of mourners with whom
they
h d
quarrelled. Even before this is carried out,
some boy who
h d not t ken
p rt
in the
revels
is suspected of disaffection because of his ab
sence, nd is brought trembling
to
the
pot
of
boiling oil ;
it
is poured over his hands
nd
arms
nd he slinks away shuddering in agony, only
to be killed eventually because the oil has
raised blisters where
it
touched
the
skin. Two
young girls have escaped from
the
chief s
harem nd have gone into a y rd where a boy
is sleeping. They are seized nd chained
up
while
n
excited palaver is held to decide
wh t
their punishment shall be. To these savages
the
infliction of corporal punishment is a kind
of entertaining spectacle. The opportunity of
making it sufficiently interesting must
not
be
lost. Strong arms are to ply the alligator hide
nd one hundred stripes are to be administered.
The jeers nd laughter of
the
crowd of specta-
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The reat chievement
49
tors mingle with the screams of
the
victims and
the
excitement reaches its highest pitch when
salt is rubbed into the wounds and mutilation
or dismemberment follows. Such was life in
Okoyong a sinister cinema of cruelty blood·
shed drunkenness murder agony suspicion
horror. The factory girl was right at
the out
set when she judged
that
the
needs of Okoyong
were greater than
the
needs of
the
slums of
Dundee.
Mary Slessor began her work by simply
ministering with loving sympathy to
the
hum
blest needs that came
n
her way. She visited
the sick cared for
the
children encouraged
the
women spoke kindly to any who seemed sor·
rowful or lonely. She never allowed any
journey however long and perilous through
forest or
by
river
by
day or by night however
weary or sick she might be herseli to deter
her from carrying all
the
resources of her
mini-
stration to any
human
need that had been
brought beneath her. notice. Her kindness
her courage her sell-denial
her
justice touched
to life something
in
those savage breasts that
lay deeper
than
all the tangle of hideous custom
with which
they
were so rankly overgrown.
By degrees she
attained
a recognised moral
ascendency
in
the wild disorder of the commu
nity. This stood her in good stead n the more
stubborn
battle
that she had to fight with the
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50
ary lessor
active powers of evil. One afternoon a young
slave-wife who was sullen
and
dissatisfied with
her
unhappy
lot
went and
sat
down in the hut
of a slave. The slave was alarmed, knowing
well
what the
consequences would be,
but
the
woman refused to move. The
man
went off
to
his work and she walked into the for
est
and
hanged herself. The
next
morning
the
man, heavily chained, was brought into
a
palaver,
and the
master of the slave-wife
and
his
relatives decreed
that the man
must die. They
had
been degraded by association with a com
mon slave.
Mary Slessor was present
at
the
palaver
and
protested against
the
injustice of
the
sentence.
t was not
the
man's fault, she argued, that
the girl had gone to his hut.
But,
was the
reply,
he put
the thought into the girl's mind,
and
the witch-doctor has pronounced him
guilty. Mary persisted. The crowd became
angry ; why,
they
demanded, should a stranger
who was there
on
sufferance interfere with
their power. Threats were shouted, guns
and
swords were waved, and the position grew
critical;
but
she stood
her
ground, quiet
and
cool
and
patient.
Her tact,
her good humour,
the
spiritual force
that
seemed
to
emanate
from her
in
times of peril,
at last
prevailed.
The noise and confusion subsided and ultimately
the man's life was spared. I t wa s through
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The
reat
chievement
51
countless critical victories like these
that
she
was gradually accorded
an
informal position
of
arbitrator
that would never have been
allowed
to
any other.
Fifteen years have passed since that Sunday
when, with weary frame
and
bleeding feet, she
first entered upon
her
work
at
Ekenge.
t
is
the
anniversary
and
a red-letter day.
For
the
first time a communion service was held in
Okoyong. A great throng filled the hall and
overflowed into
the
grounds, many sitting on
native stools and chairs and even on gin-boxes.
Before
the
communion service she presented
eleven of the children, including six whom
she had rescued ; and seven young people
were received into
the
Church. These were the
outward signs of a profound change in
the
life
of
the
community. The old order of heathen
ism
had
been broken up. The business of
life was no longer fighting and killing. Women
were free from outrage
and
the death menace;
slaves
had
begun
to
realise that they were
human
beings with rights. Industry and
trade
were established. Peace reigned. The people
were openly living
the
Christian life,
and
many
lads were actively engaged in Church work.
Alone Mary Slessor had done in Okoyong
what it had taken
a
whole Mission to do in
Ca la bar
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CHAPTER VII.
SPADE-WORK AND HONOUR.
N this brief stretch
it is
impossible
to
give
any
adequate impression of the life of
strenuous
and
multifarious activity which Mary
Slessor led. In addition
to the
services on
Sunday
and
the visitation
and
nursing of the
sick,
and
the
application of
the
message of
the
Gospel
at
every possible opportunity, she was
called
to take part
in
all kinds of work. Visi
tors
not
seldom found
her
on
the
roof re-tiling
her house after a storm. Once she was
dis-
covered making cement. Asked if she
had
ever had
any
lessons in cement-making she
replied,
No,
I just
stir it
like porridge; turn
it
out, smooth
it
with a stick
and
all
the
time
keep praying,
'Lord
here's
the cement;
if
to
thy glory, set it,' and it has never once gone
wrong. Planting corn,
and
cocoa and yams,
cutting away
the
ever-encroaching bush that
might harbour beasts of prey, tending
the
starry
jasmine that was trained over her
verandah, listening
to
a story of
an unjust
divorce, declaring the innocence of one who
i i
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Spade orlc
nd Honour 53
had
been wrongly accused, deciding the rights
in
a dispute a.bout
a
land
case,
darting
into
the
bush
to
rescue an infant which
had
been left
there
to
die, burying t ~ dead, comforting,
counselling, rebuking the Hying. This was
her
service.
A Government official who ea.me to see
her
gives
the
following account :
Her
compound was full of litigants, witnesses
and
onlookers, and it was impressive to see how
deep was the respect with which she was
treated by them all. She was again
in
her
rocking-chair surrounded by several ladies-
and
babies
in
waiting-nursing
another
infant.
Suddenly she jumped up
with an
angry growl ;
her shawl fell off,
the
baby was
transferred to
some one qualified to hold
it
and with a few
trenchant words she made for the door where
a hulking·, overdressed native stood. In a mo
ment
she seized
him
by
the
scruff of
the
neck,
boxed his ears,
and
hustled him out of the
yard
telling him quite explicitly
what
he might
expect i he came back without her consent. I
watched
him and his followers slink away
very
crestfallen.
Then
as suddenly as it had arisen
the
tornado
subsided,
and
(lace shawl,
baby
and
all) she was again gently swaying
in her
chair. The man was a local monarch of sorts
who had been
impuden